FIFA Looks to Crack Down on Diving
By Associated Press

March 16, 2002, 1:08 PM EST

ZERMATT, Switzerland -- Referees at this summer's World Cup should crack
down on players who dive and pretend to have been fouled, soccer's
rule-making body said Saturday.

At its annual meeting, the International Football Association Board said if
a player is ejected and video evidence later shows he did not commit a foul,
the FIFA disciplinary committee would have the right to review his case
sympathetically and not automatically impose a one-game suspension.

Match officials at a World Cup referees' seminar in Seoul, South Korea, next
week will be told not to tolerate players demanding yellow or red cards be
issued to for opponents for fouls real or simulated, the board decided.

The board gave its approval for players to celebrate goals by pulling off
their shirts -- as long as they didn't deliberately waste time. But it
voiced concern about "players deliberately taking off their shirts to reveal
messages on their undershirts, sometimes of a political, religious,
commercial or social nature."

"It was agreed that at the World Cup, and at all football matches worldwide
as from 1 July this year, undershirts must contain no message of any kind,
but be of only one plain color," the board said in a statement.

The board also agreed to draft a rule explicitly stating that advertising on
players' equipment is permitted on the front of the shirt only.

The board includes representatives of the soccer associations of England,
Scotland, Wales and Ireland plus FIFA -- the sport's governing body.

Permission was given for miniature television cameras to be fixed to the
supports of the goal nets for World Cup games, but it was stressed that this
was for general coverage, not for deciding whether a ball crossed the goal
line.
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

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